Actinobacteria are Gram-positive bacteria that have a complex multicellular life cycle and are well known for their ability to produce a wide range of bioactive natural products (NPs).

In this study Lilie Roosman describes the effects of prominence and boundary marking on the temporal and melodic structures of two regional languages of Indonesia, viz. Toba Batak, a stress language, and her native language Betawi Malay, a non-stress language.

In African societies today, growing inequality and continued exclusion due to ethnicity, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation give rise to both contestation and cooperation for social change. How does the written or spoken word lead to collaboration and contestation in areas of social…

The high prevalence of pure red cell aplasia in Thailand has been associated with the sharp increase in number of recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) copy products, based on a classical generic regulatory pathway, which have entered the market.

This thesis seeks to examine the emergence of Persian novels and short stories during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

The idea of citizens and public professionals collaborating to provide public services has widely spread in several countries around the globe. Co-production is often presented as the go-to solution for challenges like a legitimacy crisis of both the government and the market, and financial concerns.…

Promotor: G.A. Persoon, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Promotores: Prof.dr. C.A.M.J.J. van den Hondel, Prof.dr. V. Meyer (Technische Universität Berlin)

The aim of this project was to estimate emissions from lead products-in-use for the past, the present and the future and assess the development of toxicological risks associated with these products.

Turkic nomadic rulers established large empires in the Middle East and Asia between the 11th and 14th centuries. This project will explore the link between their political ideology and the production of art and literature, via the cultural heritage of five cities along the Silk Road: Kashgar, Samarkand,…

Streptomyces present a valuable platform for natural product discovery. Lugdunomycin is a novel angucycline-derived polyketide from Streptomyces sp QL37, with unprecedented skeleton and antimicrobial activity.

This dissertation is concerned with the study of the less than twenty remaining precolonial Mesoamerican codices. By considering these rare and fragile pictographic and hieroglyphic books from the cultural biography perspective, many different aspects of these books can be studied.

How can cell wall engineering approaches be used to improve streptomycetes for industry to make new antibiotics?

Can we develop new enzymes and cell factories to upgrade current enzyme cocktails towards complete degradation of biomass?

Science, Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML)

On December 11th, Andreea Geambasu succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Andreea on this great result.

PNAS publication on protein encounter complexes

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo

This thesis examines the impacts and challenges of water use of electric power system. This thesis found that there are large differences in water use of electricity technologies, with hydropower and thermal power being two large water users.

When do fire making tools appear in prehistory, and how might the use of these tools manifest in the archaeological record?

How can we, together international experts, define future needs of R+D contributions for innovations in the field of risk-based management of chemicals and products in a global perspective using alternative testing strategies to minimize animal tests?

Promotor: W. Jiskoot, Co-promotor: H.A. Every

What are the behaviours of plant traits throughout various points in the growing season in a radiative transfer model framework and how well can this knowledge be integrated through data assimilation to provide priors for robust local and global vegetation products and analysis?

As a contribution to the changing legislation and evolving societal attitudes concerning environmental issues, this project aims to enhance and manipulate the plants’ own natural defense mechanisms against western flower thrips (WFT).

Lecture

Saeedeh Shahnahpur defended her thesis on 13 September 2016.

ASLU 7 - A.E. de Hingh

This collection includes six short policy-focused contributions exploring how legislation and policy on counter cyber terrorism unfold at the national level in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, France, and at the regional level of the European Union.

On Wednesday 24 January 2018 Margaret Kuiper, a forensic psychologist, will defend her doctoral thesis ‘Het woord en de daad’ (The word and the deed). The defence will start at 16.15 hrs, at the Academy Building of Leiden University. Her supervisors are Professor E.R. Muller and Professor T.A.H. Doreleijers.…

What exactly does it mean when your doctor says you have a ‘good chance’ of survival? Leiden researchers discovered that there is a big difference in how people interpret such probability phrases. And that can be a problem, warns lead researcher Sanne Willems in her blog post.

A flake of limestone (ostracon) inscribed with an ancient Egyptian word list of the fifteenth century BC turns out to be the world’s oldest known abecedary. The words have been arranged according to their initial sounds, and the order followed here is one that is still known today. This discovery has…

Besides being a linguist, George Saad is also a photography fanatic. He shares his most beautiful and telling pictures, shot during his field research in Eastern Indonesia.

Anja Groten contributes the essay 'The Workshop and Cultural Production' to Amsterdam-based publication platform 'Open!'

Research of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry into the development of a sustainable fuel cell has accidentally resulted in an exceptionally efficient catalyst for the production of hydrogen peroxide. The catalyst, discovered by Dennis Hetterscheid and PhD candidate Michiel Langerman, may lead to a more…

‘Free-market economics has reduced the value of higher education to a question of efficiency and productivity,’ says Sarah de Rijcke. And, she adds, there is no clear description of what we actually want scientific research to achieve. Inaugural speech on Friday 17 May.

From bedtime stories about mathematics to podcasts about microplastics and games on weeds: master students from the Science Communication & Society track presented the real-life products they developed during their final presentations on 20 December. Many of the products are already implemented by c…

Dear friends of the NVIC

... studies the developmental course and dynamics of cognition, self-regulation, and emotional competence, and the implications for educational and clinical practice.

Dear friends of the NVIC,

Nederland Circulair! is organising the week of the circular economy, for the second time. This is a great setting for Leiden University to promote several of the university’s circular initiatives. We will kick off with an initiative by alumna Noortje Schrauwen: Raw material beachcombing.

Computer scientist Bas van Stein conducted research at Tata Steel and BMW on how their production processes could be streamlined and optimised on the basis of data. As part of his research he developed some innovative products. PhD defence 20 September.

Synthetic fuel is cleaner than natural oil, but its production process needs to be more efficient. Now for the first time, physicists have directly observed the molecules produced in the chemical process. This paves the way for designing more efficient catalysts. Publication on September 19th in Nature…

Dr Amany Soliman joined the NVIC as a postdoctoral research fellow in October 2017. She is a lecturer of modern history and international relations at the Mediterranean Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University. For her PhD thesis, she examined the nationalist movements in Spain,…

Dear friends of the institute,

The Etymology Calendar for 2020, which was compiled by five linguistics students from Leiden University, has now hit the shops. After the resounding success of the first Etymology Calendar last year, this year’s version is being published by big-name publishing house Brill.

Environmental scientists in Leiden have found that the so-called leaf economics spectrum for plants can not only be applied to terrestrial ecosystems, such as forests and grasslands, but also to wetlands. Furthermore, they showed that wetland plants generally have a fast-return strategy, meaning they…

The ongoing increase in antimicrobial resistance combined with the low discovery of novel antibiotics is a serious threat to our health care.

Promotor: R. Tijdeman, Co-promotor: C. Kraaikamp

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel, Co-Promotor: E. Vijgenboom